CNN columnist on kayak journey down S.J. River

Paddling the length of the San Joaquin River from Friant Dam to the Golden Gate seems an almost inevitable Valley adventure. But few people ever do it.

Michael Fitzgerald

Paddling the length of the San Joaquin River from Friant Dam to the Golden Gate seems an almost inevitable Valley adventure. But few people ever do it.

It's a long journey, upwards of 200 miles. There aren't many public spots along the way. The surroundings are often vacant and eerie. And a stretch of the river runs dry.

Now, however, an intrepid CNN columnist is kayaking the river. John D. Sutter is talking to residents along the way, using Twitter to involve people.

The sunburned Sutter paddled into Stockton over the weekend. We met at Nena's waterfront restaurant.

"It's cool and strange to be in a city and eat prepared food," said Sutter, 31. After two weeks of roughing it, the weary Sutter joked he came gratefully into civilization "like huddled masses."

Sutter explained his mission. "I go to bottom-of-the-list places and advocate on their behalf."

He decided to explore the San Joaquin after seeing it ranked America's most endangered river.

First he hiked to the headwaters far above the dam (add scores more miles to his journey). There he saw the San Joaquin as Nature creates it: clear, cold, tumbling. Full of life.

Then, on June 14th, he put in a kayak just below Friant east of Fresno. There, too, the water swirls fresh and cold.

And runs swift in places. On one of Sutter's first days, a strong current dragged him into a thicket of trees. The kayak dumped. His go cam went. His wallet went with it.

Since then, "I do think I have gotten better," Sutter said. "The main thing is to read the water. And go where it wants you to go."

Kayaking downriver, Sutter soon realized the San Joaquin is not dead, as some say. He witnessed a baptism. And a wedding. He met a man bringing at-risk boys to fish. A man who hunts clams with his feet. One farm woman reading his tweets waited by the river for two hours to meet him.

"People are responding and helping me understand and changing the way I see things," he said. "It's something I didn't foresee."

Sutter talks with farmers, enviros, characters he encounters randomly, much of which he tweets. A sample tweet:

" 'There are farmers who are going to commit suicide ... You're working with a gun to your head.' George Delgado."

The river flows healthily until the Mendota Pools. That switchyard diverts fresh water to farms. Farms return brown, recirculated water. "From there on it's clearly not the water I was hanging with, where the water is cold, blue, fresh, clean," Sutter said.

Still, Sutter resists a polarized view of the water wars.

"I don't think you can write off people who are offended by the settlement," he said, referring to south Valley farmers who chafe at the San Joaquin River restoration program, the outcome of a historic lawsuit to revive the river.

Opponents of the settlement and supporters of the Delta tunnels plan are not evil, Sutter said. Some are ma and pa farmers, not land barons or corporate ag.

"The whole system is spread over so many people who don't mean to do wrong. But you have this system that in the macro sense is failing."

It's a human failing, he said.

"One of the things about water is it makes people look beyond their own self-interest. People have to depend on each other. But you have lawsuits, not dialogue."

Nowhere is the failing starker than the place where the river runs dry.

"Standing in the spot where the river dries up, it felt kind of surreal," Sutter recalled. "Really sad. I was mad at the river, mad at the system that made it that way."

"This is the second biggest river in California," he tweeted. "Once home to a vibrant salmon population. Tapped out."

Sutter slogged through deep sand in summer heat with no shade, his water running out.

He reached water again, and he paddled on. One day he woke to find tidal water lifting a kayak he had hauled onto dry land. "And I was like, 'Oh! I must be in the Delta.' "

He took a side trip to the Tracy pumps on Monday. Now he's probably well on his way to the Golden Gate, having drawn attention to an overlooked river.

Follow an epic reporting feat at #endangeredriver.

"It's a troubled river," Sutter said. "It has a lot of problems. But it is a living river. A lot of people love it."

Contact columnist Michael Fitzgerald at (209) 546-8270 or michaelf@recordnet.com. Follow him at recordnet.com/fitzgeraldblog and on Twitter @Stocktonopolis.

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